Turf scarifying – you may be breaking the law
A worrying situation has come to light this month with the realisation that the time-honoured practice of gathering up turf scarification chaff and spreading it at new sites to establish new turf is illegal under the NSW Protection of the Environment (Operations) Act 1997 (POEO Act). (See also our article on “clean fill” in this issue of Fertile Minds.)
Shifting the goalposts
The intentions of the POEO Act are good: to ensure that waste is minimised through reuse, reduction, substitution and recycling. Unfortunately, the rigid implementation of the Act doesn’t match the flexible nature of the real world.
Turf managers who scarify every year need to dispose of the chaff. Long before the POEO Act was thought of, they were already meeting the aims of the Act: Traditionally, the chaff is trucked to a new site, where it is spread and rolled and then watered well until the sprigs take root and grow into new turf.
But by rigidly defining what can and cannot be reused, the POEO Act has shifted the goalposts, making illegal a practice that meets its aims.
Don’t break the law
As the law stands, if you scarify your turf, you must dispose of the chaff to landfill. You must not reuse it to establish new turf, or you could be liable to a hefty fine.
What you can do
Under the POEO Act, many so-called waste materials are exempted from the requirements of the Act for disposal (see Resource recovery exemptions) and may be reused on land in accordance with the relevant exemption. Turf chaff isn’t ... yet.
Fortunately, the Act allows proponents to apply for an exemption for a material. If the Department of the Environment, Climate Change and Water (DECCW) approves the exemption, the material may then be used on land.
SESL encourages affected readers to make contact with their relevant industry body and press for the preparation of a submission to DECCW to exempt turf chaff. See Guidelines for applying for an exemption for how to prepare a submission. SESL will be happy to help you prepare a submission if you wish.
In the interim
For now, reuse of turf chaff is illegal. Once a submission for exemption is lodged, SESL understands that DECCW might be persuaded to permit the status quo while the submission is being considered, but you would have to seek DECCW’s advice.
The sooner a submission can be prepared and lodged, the greater the chance that an exemption will be granted this year (2010) before scarifying time is on us. SESL urges turf managers to act now.
Testing, testing, testing
There is no guarantee that DECCW will grant an exemption, so the more thoroughly the application is prepared, the better the chance will be. But let’s be positive and assume that an exemption will be granted. You must keep in mind that it will come with conditions. One major condition will be that all chaff must be tested in a laboratory (such as SESL) for several contaminants.
The nature of turf management means that many chemicals are regularly applied: fertilisers, insecticides, fungicides, nematicides, herbicides. Some of these chemicals remain in soil and plant material; some have toxic breakdown products; some are contaminated with heavy metals. In addition, the chaff always has some soil present, and the soil itself could hold heavy metals. So any turf chaff either reused to establish new turf or composted for soil amendment could hold harmful chemicals. Here the Act shows it worth in preventing the contamination of clean soil by requiring testing first. Harmful materials can then be disposed of, while beneficial materials can be reused and save you money.
If and when an exemption is granted, you will have to send samples to a lab for regular testing. The likely testing requirement, as stated in other exemptions, is 10 composite samples per 400 tonnes. Laboratory testing is not cheap at any lab, so you must allow for this in your budget.
Further reading
NSW DECCW. Regulating waste in NSW.
NSW DECCW. Protection of the Environment Operations Act 1997.
NSW DECCW. Resource recovery exemptions.
NSW DECCW. Waste classification guidelines.
SESL. 2008. Changes to the NSW Protection of the Environment Operations Act.
SESL. 2008. Waste regulation in NSW.